Meet the Churrobots, EPA's Robotics Team

The name gets a smile every time. Churrobots, a mash of churros and robots, is the kind of thing a room full of teenagers comes up with when you let them name their own team and mean it. It is playful, it is proudly local, and it tells you something true before you have seen a single match: this is a team that belongs to its kids, not to a corporate logo. Underneath the fun, though, is a serious piece of work, and a quietly radical one for this corner of Silicon Valley.

Because here is the plain fact. East Palo Alto has one FIRST Robotics Competition team. Just one. In a region where well-resourced high schools a few exits up the highway may field multiple teams with sponsors, dedicated shop space, and rosters of professional mentors on speed dial, the students on this side of the water had none, until Hope Horizon built one.

What FIRST Robotics actually is

If the acronyms are new to you, start here. FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology. It is a nonprofit that runs robotics programs for students from elementary school through high school, and its flagship high school program is the FIRST Robotics Competition, or FRC. Every FRC team in the world, including the Churrobots, gets the same game reveal and a standard kit of parts on the same day each January, then has roughly six weeks to design, build, wire, and program a full-size competition robot before traveling to regional events to play it.

It is not a class, and it is not a science-fair diorama. It is closer to a startup sprint run by teenagers. There is a real deadline, a real budget, a machine that either works or does not work in front of a crowd, and a culture FIRST calls "gracious professionalism," where teams help their rivals with parts and advice even as they compete against them. Kids learn to compete hard and stay kind in the same afternoon.

One city. One team. And every year, a box of parts, a blank problem, and six weeks to prove what these kids can do.

How the Churrobots grew

Programs like this are fragile at the start. A first-year FRC team is often a handful of brave students, one borrowed room, and a couple of adults figuring it out alongside them. The impressive thing about the Churrobots is not that the team exists. It is that it keeps growing.

The robotics program has grown from 21 students to 36, a jump of about 70 percent. That number is worth sitting with, because growth like that does not come from a marketing push. It comes from word of mouth in a small community. One student comes home from a build night talking about the drivetrain they wired, a younger sibling or a cousin or a friend at church hears it, and the next season the room is fuller. Nothing recruits a kid to robotics like watching another kid who looks like them do it first.

Who's on the team

The roster is East Palo Alto itself. Across Hope Horizon, 93 percent of the students we serve are Hispanic or Black, kids from a community where roughly nine in ten families are low income. These are exactly the young people the engineering world has spent decades underrepresenting, not for lack of talent, but for lack of a door.

For a lot of Churrobots members, the team is a string of firsts. First time holding a power drill. First time reading a wiring diagram and having it make sense. First time staying late because the code finally compiled and nobody wanted to leave. First time standing in front of a panel of judges, in a team shirt, explaining why they designed the arm the way they did, and realizing halfway through that they actually know the answer.

Picture a composite of a typical rookie. She joins in the fall a little unsure she belongs, having never touched a robot, quietly convinced the technical kids will leave her behind. By competition season she is the one teaching the next new student how to crimp a connector without stripping it. That arc, from unsure to indispensable, is the real product of a season. The robot is just the thing they build while it happens.

Why one team matters this much

To understand why a single robotics team is a big deal, look at the gap it sits inside. In the local Ravenswood City Elementary School District during the 2024-25 school year, about 12 percent of students scored proficient or above in English on the state test, against roughly 49 percent statewide. Most families here are low income. Meanwhile, the campuses where a lot of the world's technology gets built are close enough to bike to.

That contrast is not a knock on these kids. It is a description of an opportunity gap, and robotics is one concrete way to close a piece of it. A young person who spends a season being an engineer, solving a real problem under a real deadline with a real team, walks away with something a worksheet cannot give: proof, in their own hands, that they can do this. And the research backs up how far that proof travels.

A 2024 longitudinal study from Brandeis University followed FIRST participants over years and compared them to similar peers. It found that FIRST alumni were significantly more likely to take STEM courses, major in a STEM field in college, and go into STEM careers, with especially strong effects for young women. A program a kid joins in high school is still shaping their choices years later, out in the working world.

What a season costs, and what it's worth

None of this is free. An FRC season runs on real money and real hours: competition parts and materials, tools and safety gear, registration and travel to regional events, and mentors who show up week after week. For a team without a built-in corporate sponsor, every one of those line items is a question mark at the start of the year, answered by people who choose to believe these students belong in the room.

That is where the name earns its keep. The Churrobots are not a line in some company's marketing budget. They are a neighborhood's kids, backed by neighbors, churches, and anyone else who decides to chip in. When someone sponsors the team, they are not buying a naming right. They are buying a fourteen-year-old her first soldering iron and the afternoons that come with it.

Faith runs underneath our work at Hope Horizon, and it shows up here in a simple conviction: every one of these students was made with real gifts, and they deserve a place to use them. A robotics team turns out to be a strikingly concrete way to say so. You can talk all day about a kid's potential, or you can hand her a robot to build and watch her find out.

East Palo Alto has exactly one FIRST Robotics Competition team. The goal was never to have the flashiest robot on the field. It was to make sure the students here got the same shot as the kids across the highway. Every season the Churrobots keep, and every new student who fills the room, is that shot being taken.

Common questions

Who are the Churrobots?

The Churrobots are FRC team #8048, the FIRST Robotics Competition team run by Hope Horizon in East Palo Alto. They are East Palo Alto's FIRST Robotics Competition team, and the program has grown from 21 to 36 students, an increase of about 70 percent.

Is the Churrobots the robotics team in East Palo Alto?

Yes. The Churrobots, FRC team #8048, are East Palo Alto's FIRST Robotics Competition team. For many students on the team, it is their first hands-on experience with power tools, wiring, and programming a real competition robot.

What does a robotics team like this do for students?

A 2024 longitudinal study from Brandeis University found FIRST participants were significantly more likely to take STEM courses, major in a STEM field, and pursue STEM careers than similar peers, with especially strong effects for young women. Beyond academics, a season builds teamwork, resilience, and the confidence that comes from building something real.

How can I support the Churrobots?

A robotics season runs on parts, tools, travel to competitions, and mentors. You can sponsor the team, give a one-time or monthly gift to Hope Horizon, or volunteer as a mentor. You do not need an engineering background to help.